


Synergy

by Molly



Category: Sports Night
Genre: Case Fic, First Time, M/M, Slash, Sports Night - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-09-22
Updated: 2008-09-22
Packaged: 2017-10-02 00:47:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,306
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/859
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Molly/pseuds/Molly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>In which Dan and Casey come to a greater understanding of the true value of quality accessories. </i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Synergy

**Author's Note:**

> My first Sports Night story. One of THE first Sports Night stories... this was written early days.

"I think I need a hug."

Dan Rydell ignored his partner.  For ten years he'd been honing the  ability  to ignore Casey McCall, and by now he was very, very good at it.  He'd  come  to two equal and opposite conclusions about Casey over the course of those  ten years:  One, that he knew the man better than anyone on the planet and its satellite and two, that he would never understand the man, not if he kept trying until the Niner's won their next Superbowl.

"Danny, put down your pen."

Dan looked up.  He didn't put down his pen.  "I'm writing.  If I put down my pen, the writing process is going to suffer.  It's inevitable." Truthfully, the writing process had already suffered unto the point of death, but Casey didn't need to know that.

"I want the writing process to suffer.  I want it to come to a complete stop, actually, and give way to the listening process."

"I'm listening.  I've been listening."

"No, you've been pretending to listen.  Your nods went out of sync ten minutes ago."

Dan put down his pen.  He put it down in the way of a man who would much rather be throwing it across the room.  He reminded himself, very firmly, that Casey was his best friend, and put both hands palm down on top of his desk.  "Talk to me, Case."

"Thank you."

"Never a problem."

Casey smiled.  Grinned, actually, Dan thought.  A lot of people couldn't tell the difference.  One expression involved warmth and companionship and felt a lot like the hug Casey had said he needed.  The other involved winning, and was saved from a certain sharkiness only by the lack of a second row of teeth.  This grin said there had been a contest Dan hadn't been aware of, and Casey had won it, and the prize was Dan's attention. Attention Casey already had, but then, it didn't hurt to let the guy think he was in the zone once in a while.

"Are you planning on talking now?  Because if you're not planning on talking, I need to bleed some more ink onto this page."

"Why are you not using your computer?"

Dan shoved himself back from his desk, sprawling into his chair in a way that almost -- but not quite -- tipped him over.  He glared at Casey, the darkest look he could manage.  He didn't expect it to faze his partner, and he was not proven wrong.  "I thought this was about a hug."

"It was about a hug.  Now it's about your computer."

"I'm frankly more comfortable discussing the hug."

"Tough."

Dan sighed, and looked at his phone.  Now would be a great time for his phone to ring.  Natalie hadn't called him all day; it was making him feel slightly out of the loop.  He had no idea how freaked out Dana was by Casey having a date last night, for instance, and he didn't know if Jeremy had gotten lucky with Natalie herself last night.  For all he knew of the office weather today, Isaac could've gotten lucky with Dana.  It wasn't likely, and a part of him somewhere deep inside couldn't help but recoil from the thought of Isaac actually having sex, but it could've happened and if it had, Danny wanted to know about it.  He could've profitably discussed any of those three topics, and would actually prefer any of them to the discussion he was almost not having right now.

The phone didn't ring.  It continued to fail to ring while Dan tapped his pen against the notebook lying prone and dead on his desk.  The tip hit the page, his fingers slid down.  Lifted, flipped.  The top hit the page. Repeated assault with a blunt object.  All his copy lacked was a chalk outline.

"What do you think of Dana and Isaac?" Dan said, just to see what Casey would do.

Across the room, Casey was watching him.  He was wearing a very nice grey jacket over a pinkish button-down with a tie that wardrobe had not picked out for him.  Dan knew wardrobe hadn't picked it out because its main feature was a large, blue-eyed gorilla with long eyelashes and red lipstick.  Above it, the words "Love Monkey" were scrawled in electric purple.

"I think they're both very good people," Casey said, totally missing the point.  Not even on purpose, which Dan found extremely irritating.  If either of them were to escape thinking about Dana and Isaac in bed, Dan felt it should be him.  After all, he wasn't the one with the abiding interest in Dana's love life.

"Of course they're very good people," Dan said, leaning back over his notebook.

"I just don't see what that has to do with your computer."

Dan didn't answer.  He wasn't going to answer that question.  Instead, he looked pointedly at Casey's chest.  Casey's taste in clothing was always a safe conversational choice.  "That's a very nice tie."

"Are you deliberately ignoring my question, Danny, or is this something we need to go get checked out?"

"Definitely deliberately ignoring."

"All right then," Casey said, nodding.  Smiling, too.  Back in the groove. "It's a gift from Charlie.  I promised I'd wear it on the air tonight."

Dan knew that, too.  He'd helped Casey's son pick it out.  He'd encouraged the boy to elicit that very promise.  A best friend's work was never done. He figured Dana was good for about a 9.2 on the Richter scale when she saw it on the set.  Biting down on the inside of his mouth, Dan looked down at the notebook full of bad writing and made a mental appointment to take Charlie out for ice cream or something next time Casey had him.  "He's a great kid," Dan said.

"You're changing the subject again."

"There is no subject, Casey."

"There's the subject of your computer and why you're not using it."

"Are you sure you don't want a hug?"

"I'm sure that if you hug me I'll have to belt you."

Dan laughed.  "I'm not feeling a great deal of love between us right now." But he was.  It was hard as hell to stay mad at Casey when he was in a good mood, and nothing put him in a better mood than needling Danny did.  This was one of life's little sacrifices, Danny told himself.  He would bear up.

"The computer, Dan?"

Dan took a deep breath.  "It hates me."

"Jesus."  Casey rolled his eyes, and turned back to his own personal data demon.  Dan stood up, went over to Casey's desk and parked on the edge of it.  He leaned over to take a look  
at the screen, making sure that whatever Casey was working on was at least as bad as what Dan had  
been working on himself. Petty, yes. But reassuring.

"Hey, you asked," Dan pointed out.

"My mistake. I was operating under the assumption that I was speaking  
to a rational human being from the twentieth century."

Dan leaned in close, and whispered. "It's the work of the devil," he  
said seriously to Casey's condescending smirk. "That's all I'm saying.  
It's crashed five times on me today, each time taking with it a little  
more of an absolutely brilliant piece of writing for tonight's show  
which,  
thanks to that silicon minion of hell, is going to suck like the vacuum  
of space. It doesn't want me to be successful, Casey. It wants me to  
fail."

"Did you hit your head on something this morning?"

"You asked."

Casey muttered something under his breath that Dan couldn't quite make  
out. Danny answered it anyway. "'I am not a pessimist,'" he quoted.  
"'To perceive evil where it exists is, in my opinion, a form of  
optimism.'"

"Roberto Rossellini," Casey said instantly. "But he wasn't talking  
about  
paranormally infested computers."

"The point remains."

Standing up, Casey gestured expansively at his chair. "Would you like  
to use my computer? If you want to, you can. It's right here. It's  
all warmed up. It's ready for whatever pearls of wisdom and wit you  
care to drop into it. I want you to use it, because I'm your friend  
and I care about you."

Dan studied Casey carefully. "What're you going to use?"

"Your computer."

"I can't let you do that."

"You can and you will. Go on, sit. We're trading. I can't have my  
partner exposed to the forces of evil before a show."

"You're mocking me, aren't you."

"Yes, Dan, I am."

Dan took Casey's chair. It seemed to be slightly more comfortable than  
his own, but he put that down to the pleasure of having swiped  
something. "That beast is going to swallow you whole," Dan warned.

"I'll make a will."

"Not on that thing you won't."

"Dan?"

"Yes, young Jedi?"

"I'm not going to get that hug, am I."

"Truth, my friend?"

"Always."

"There's not a chance in hell."

  
   


* * *

  
   


Dan had called to tell her he had no copy, to say he'd made his peace  
with that fact, and to lay the blame for all of it at Casey's feet.  
Natalie, the assistant who was always exactly where Dana needed her to  
be, had vanished. Casey was rumored to be wearing a tie with a gorilla  
on it and couldn't be reached via phone or email. Dana didn't believe  
in bad luck, but apparently bad luck believed in her. The only two  
people  
she could pin down were Jeremy, who was engaged in an activity that actually related to his job and therefore should not be disturbed, and Isaac, her own boss -- who offered to show her his job description when she asked him to help her track down some of her crew.  There was a meeting in the conference room in five minutes and no one had made any coffee.

She wasn't going to do it herself.  She was the producer, damn it, and she knew her own job description by heart.  Making coffee wasn't part of it. It was a part of Natalie's job description; she'd made sure of that during the interview process.  There were a lot of things that were part of Natalie's job description that had not been done today, and Dana was one part worried and three full parts mad as hell.

The balance shifted as Natalie's home phone rang over and over, and finally the machine picked up.

"Hi, this is Natalie, and I'm not home.  I'm never home, so don't call back.  You can page me at..."

The machine reeled off Natalie's pager number, but Dana didn't write it down.  She knew that by heart, too, and Natalie wasn't answering her pages.

Dana pressed down on the hook, cutting off the bright, caffeinated voice. She let up again, hit another number, and waited for Jeremy to pick up.

  
   


* * *

  
   


Casey hated meetings.  Not the spectacular, blinding kind of hate that Dan's computer was apparently harboring for all things having to do with sports, but rather the kind that buzzed warmly at the back of one's brain and generated various snide remarks that could be scattered throughout a meeting to display one's utter contempt for it.  He didn't need coffee to maintain it, which was good, because there wasn't any.  He did, however, prefer to express it in the company of people other than Dan Rydell.

Not that Dan wouldn't appreciate it.  Quite the contrary.  Dan was the only person who consistently got Casey's jokes, something Casey preferred to ascribe to intellect rather than familiarity.  The thing was, Dan didn't get annoyed by it anymore; he'd built up some kind of immunity over the years.  The proper ecological niche for attitude called for the presence of people who'd be actively annoyed by it, and currently, all of those people were missing.

Casey had never been on time for a production meeting in his entire career, and it bugged him that he seemed to be early for this one.  "So, this thing was supposed to start, what, ten minutes ago?"

"Five," Dan said, not looking up from his notebook.  That notebook seemed to have grown attached to Dan's hand, a spiral-bound sixth finger that would have to be surgically removed when Dan was done with it.  Right now, Casey could see that Dan was writing, and writing well; the pen was zigging and zagging all over the paper and Dan was biting down on his upper lip. The thought of Dan being creative while Casey was bored was very nearly unbearable.

Casey wanted it stopped.

"I'm thinking of asking Natalie to marry me," he said calmly.

"Good," Dan answered absently.  "When?"

"When I've asked Jeremy's permission," Casey said.  "There's a protocol to these things."

"Good," Dan said again.

"Do you know that I can tell the difference between you not listening to me and you pretending you're not listening to me?"

"Really?"

"When you're actually not listening, you occasionally look up.  Make eye contact, to show me that you're listening, except that you're not. When you're pretending you're not listening to me, but actually are listening to me, you don't look up.  It gives you away every time."

Dan put down his pen and leaned over the table.  He didn't look amused, but he did look like he was listening.  "Fine," he said evenly.  "Marry Natalie.  I'll be very happy for you both.  I'll try to keep Jeremy from killing you in your sleep, but if he's insistent, you may have to go into the witness protection program for your own safety.  Dana won't be happy at all, since she'll be losing both a potential boyfriend and a damn good associate producer in one fell elopement.  Did you have anything else you wanted to tell me?"

Casey leaned over the table himself, and leveled a sincere, focused look on his partner.  "Why are you so angry with me?"

Dan's eyes snapped down; he was about to lie.  "I'm not angry with you. I'm trying to write; you're preventing that.  It makes me terse."

"That's not terse.  Terse is the same as short, which is somewhere between irked and merely miffed.  This is actual anger.  Come on, Danny, what did I do?"

"You want to know what you did?"  The truth, now, because Dan was looking at him and Dan couldn't lie to his face.  He could lie to a table, to a pen, to a notebook, but he couldn't lie while looking Casey in the eye.

"I need to know."

"Are you sure you want to know?"

"Didn't I just say?"

"Fine."  Danny put down his pen, straightened the notebook, and pushed away from the table.  He stood up, and started to pace.  Nobody paced like Dan Rydell; he could pace without moving a muscle, so that you just knew -- no matter how still he looked -- somewhere in his mind he was counting off steps.

"You were going to talk," Casey pointed out when the silence continued to lengthen.

"What are we doing here, huh?"

Casey's eyebrows went up.  "In the conference room?"

"In this _life_ we're having.  In this partnership.  What are we doing, Casey?"

"We're doing sports news."

"Is that all?"

"Houston, we've lost contact with Dan."

Dan stopped pacing, and put both hands on the table.  "Every morning, I wake up and look forward to coming in to this building and spending the day arguing with you.  I get dressed in something stupid because I know it'll make you laugh, and you need to laugh more than any ten guys in the world. I drive in, and I walk into this office, and there you are."

"You're mad because I'm punctual?"

"I'm mad because you have my complete, undivided attention approximately twenty-three hours out of every twenty-four and for those twenty-three hours, you don't give a damn.  But let me get one minute into that hour when the focus of my life is something other than Casey McCall, and you go into orbit."

Casey leaned back in his chair.  "I do not go into orbit."

"You go into orbit, Casey.  You bug me.  You do everything but yank my pigtails."

"You don't have pigtails."

"But if I did."

"This is not an image I want free-floating in my head."

Dan stopped pacing.  He walked over to Casey's chair, and crouched down beside it.  He was deadly serious, a fact that made Casey uncomfortable even as something inside him started to feel smug.  Dan was right; Casey needed to be at center stage.

The center of Dan's stage, anyway.  Most of the time, he got that. Sometimes he didn't.  He had it now, but he wasn't sure he was going to enjoy the role he was cast in.

"I'm not your personal audience of one, Case," Danny said.

Mind-reading.  It wasn't unusual.  Dan had an uncanny knack for knowing what was going on inside Casey's head.  "What if I want you to be?" Casey demanded.  "What if I need you to be?"

And then stared at the shocked look on Dan's face in something close to panic.  Casey hadn't known those words were inside him, hadn't know that feeling was inside him, until Dan pried it out of him.

"Danny," Casey said.  He didn't know what else to say.

Dan held up one hand.  His face was tight.  Casey didn't like the look on it, or the lack of a look, something.  Dan looked cold.  He said, "Don't."

Casey said it anyway.  "I'm sorry."

Dan shook his head.  He smiled, a tacked-on expression that owed more to resolve than resolution.  "We've got a show to write," he said lightly. He even slapped Casey on the shoulder for good measure.

Just two guys chatting over the absence of coffee in an empty meeting room while not writing their scripts.  Pretty much business as usual.

Except for the way Dan wasn't looking at him again, and the way Casey couldn't stop looking at Dan.

"Dan," Casey said.  "Listen--"

The door to the right swung open, cutting into what was about to be his lamest apology on record.  Dana leaned through it, and something in her expression made Casey forget what he was going to say.

Dan apparently forgot, too.  He was up and across the room before Casey could open his mouth, standing in front of Dana with one hand out, like he wanted to comfort her but was afraid she'd fly apart if he touched her.

"Dana?" he said.  "What--?"

"Natalie's apartment has been robbed," Dana said.  Her voice was high, and too bright.  "She didn't come in this morning, and she doesn't answer her pager."

"Dear God," Danny said.  "How did... I mean, when--"

"I couldn't reach her, so I sent up the security guard at her building. He found the door open.  Stuff was missing... the place was pretty wrecked. The police are there now."

"Casey," Dan said.

Casey was at Dana's side just that fast.  "Come in and sit down," he said. He pulled her away from the door, and helped her into the chair she always took.  "Have you told anyone else?"

"Isaac," she said.  "He's on the phone with the police."  She was having trouble speaking, and had to swallow several times before she could get the words out.  Casey looked up at Danny, who nodded and reached for the pitcher of water at the center of the table.  He filled a glass and handed it to Casey without a word; Casey pressed it into Dana's cold hand.

"Jeremy?" Dan asked quietly.

Dana shook her head.  Dan met Casey's eyes again.  "I'll stay with her," Casey said.

"I'm on it," Dan answered, as if there'd been a question.

  
   


* * *

  
   


Jeremy was underneath Dan's desk.  At least, those were Jeremy's shoes and black knee-high socks sticking out from under the desk, and the string of very dignified, very clean insults filtering out into the room were spoken with Jeremy's voice.  Dan didn't listen; he just reached for the skinny ankles and pulled.  The guy wasn't that big; he slid out pretty easily, all things considered.  A rumpled plaid shirt preceded equally rumpled dark hair; Jeremy was in the act of smoothing it back down and readjusting his glasses when he emerged.  Dan spared half a second for concern about carpet burn, then turned his mind to the more important matter at hand.

He didn't for an instant believe Natalie was in danger.  He'd found Isaac before he got to Jeremy, and been told in no uncertain terms that there was absolutely no evidence that Natalie had been present at the time of the break-in.  There were no signs of struggle, no blood stains -- just a missing stereo, rifled drawers, and a jewelry box overturned on the cedar dresser.  If Natalie had been there, she would've fought back, and that  
would've left its mark on the apartment.

Which meant she was okay in Dan's book, but he couldn't explain where she was, or why she wasn't at work if she was okay, so he wasn't saying anything about it.  This was definitely a situation that called for minimal reassurance.  Too much and he could be lying; none at all and Jeremy would go right off the deep end without a life jacket.  There was a happy medium in there somewhere; Dan would find it.

"What are you doing under my desk?" he said as an opener.

"Fixing your computer."

"That's where you're mistaken, Jeremy.  You can't fix what's wrong with my computer with the tools of mere mortals."

Jeremy gave Dan a Look he'd probably learned from Casey.  "Don't even start with me."

"Who told you to fix my computer?"

"Casey did.  He said you'd done something to it."

"Oh, he did, did he?"

"No," Jeremy admitted.  "What he actually said was, 'Dan's computer has been suborned by the Forces of Darkness'.  I figured the rest out on my own."

Dan grinned, and chalked one up for the home team.  "So what's wrong with it?"

"Near as I can tell, you guys keep kicking the plug loose.  See how these little tines are bent?"

"Does that negate the possibility of malevolent paranormal intervention?"

Jeremy paused, and looked as if he were weighing his options.  "Not entirely," he said warily.  "It just kind of redefines the source."

"Meaning?"

"Well, a malevolent supernatural force that disturbs objects is called a poltergeist.  If this force is affecting people directly, I would say it has to be either a demon or a ghost."

"Like Thespis?"

"Almost exactly."

"You're telling me this office is haunted?"

"Or possessed, yes.  Basically."  Jeremy pushed his glasses higher on the bridge of his nose.  "Or, you could just be accidentally kicking the plug loose."

"I think there's more at work here than a lack of coordination, don't you?" Dan said.

"I think you should tell me what's wrong," Jeremy answered.

I'm like glass, Dan thought.  Everybody sees straight through me.  He reached down, offering Jeremy a hand up from the floor.  "It's more like a failure of things to be right," he said.

"Did Dana ever find Natalie?"

I'm like very thin glass, Dan thought.  Very clean, very thin glass.  He kept Jeremy's hand in his.  "I think you'd better sit down," he said.

  
   


* * *

  
   


In the conference room, there was silence except for the sound of the automatic drip coffee machine burbling in the corner.  Isaac had taken one look at the group assembled and decided it was time for the best part of waking up.  It was just as well, Casey thought, because he and Danny both had their hands full staring blankly at their respective charges, who were staring blankly at the phone and the digital clock on the wall by turn.

It was two hours till showtime, there was no copy, and Dana was off-line. Casey didn't even want to think about the implications of running an hour of dead air instead of the Rydell-McCall show, but he was fairly certain the network would not be pleased.  He was equally certain the network was going to have to deal, because there was no way any of them were fit to put on a show under the circumstances.

Natalie had been missing for five hours.  Everyone had run out of reassuring things to say.

"Where would she go?" Jeremy said for the third time.

"Her mother's place," Danny said immediately.  The time before he'd said her father's place, and the time before that, her brother's.

"I checked there," Dana said, like she'd said the other three times.  She ran her hands through her hair, which wasn't as short as it usually was and which was showing dark at the roots.  It had been a busy month.  Casey hadn't really noticed how busy it had been until he looked really closely at Dana's hair.

Jeremy stood up.  Dan's eyes tracked him, and Casey's eyes tracked Dan's. Jeremy had been dating Natalie with increasing seriousness from the first moment he laid eyes on her.  Everyone knew he had intentions toward her, just like everyone knew that no matter how hard she'd fallen at first, Natalie was fighting the line a little.  She was like a kid who'd been playing in the shallows and suddenly found herself in over her head. Jeremy was going to win the war hands down, but so far, Natalie had taken most of the battles.

Jeremy was losing this battle, too.

"We should call them," he said, looking at the clock.

"Jeremy, we have to keep the line clear.  They're going to call us the second they hear anything," Casey said.

"She wouldn't just vanish without telling anybody," Dana said.  "They think she just took off, you heard them.  She's young, she's unattached, they think she just pulled up stakes and she wouldn't do that.  She's the most responsible person I know--"

"Dana."  Dan leaned closer to her, and made sure she met his eyes.  Casey hoped that worked on her as well as it always did on him.  "She wouldn't just vanish," Dan said.  "Okay?"

"Okay," Dana said.  Her voice had a kind of tinny quality, like the sound guys had hiked up the treble.  "Okay."

"Natalie's fine," Dan said.

"I know she's fine."  Dana nodded quickly.  "I know."

"You don't know," Jeremy said suddenly.  "How can anybody know?"

"Jeremy, sit down," Isaac ordered.

It was the first time Isaac had spoken since he passed around the coffee; Casey had almost forgotten he was there.  Isaac was like a very solid piece of granite; he was older, and he was quieter, and he had the patience of plate tectonics.  When he said something, people listened to him.

Jeremy sat down.  Isaac stood next to him, and put a dark, strong hand on Jeremy's shoulder.  He was speaking to Jeremy, but he was speaking to everyone else, too.  They listened, Dana with the look of someone going down for the third time, Jeremy with something like resentment.  Dan listened to Isaac the way he always did, watchful and reverent, like he was taking notes internally.

Casey listened, too.  Isaac was his friend, and a very smart man.

"I want you all to think very hard," Isaac said, "about what Natalie would want all of you to be doing right now.  Because when she comes back, she's going to ask, and you better be sure you have something to tell her that she's going to like.  I know that young lady, I've worked with her for three years, and I promise you this:  if she finds out that any of us lost our heads, or that this show suffered in any way, she's going to come down on us like a ton of bricks.  There is absolutely nothing we can do for her right now except pray, and take care of each other.

"Now, if there are any of you here who doubt that Natalie would want you  
to be one hundred percent supportive of one another, to hold yourselves together, and to put out a decent show tonight, I want to know it now." Isaac looked around the room; everyone was silent, watching.  "Come on, people.  I want a show of hands."

"I think we get it, Isaac," Casey said.

"Do you?  All of you?"

Dana nodded slowly, and stood up.  Jeremy stood up with her.  "Danny," she said.

"Right here."  Danny was on his feet.

"I want your script on Joan's desk in an hour and I don't want to hear a single word about demonic possession or the resemblance between Bill Gates and Cthulhu."

"All right, who told her?"  Dan spread a glare evenly among the rooms occupants.  "I will find out, you know that.  I have access to sources you haven't even dreamed of."

No one paid any attention.  It was just Dan being Dan, after all.

"Casey."

He smiled.  She was back on.  He didn't know how long it would last, but for now she was holding it together.  Her makeup was smudged and her eyes look bruised, but while he watched, she pressed her lips together to fix her lipstick.  She was back on.  "Dana," he answered, letting himself fall back into the pattern.

"Do something about that tie."

"I promised Charlie I'd wear this tie, Dana.  The tie stays."

"Casey, there is a gorilla on that tie.  Can't you talk to Charlie?"

Oh, yeah.  She was back.  "I tried.  Dan got there before me."

Dana nodded.  "Dan is responsible for the tie?"

"You knew that?" Dan said to Casey, eyebrows climbing his forehead.  He had a kind of fish-eyed look of surprise that was strangely gratifying.  "I can't believe you knew that."

"One hundred percent responsible for the tie, Dana," Casey said, grinning.

"Then Dan can talk to Charlie.  Isaac?"

"Yes, Dana?"

"Thank you, Isaac."  She took both his hands in hers.  Her eyes were bright.  "You'll watch the phone?" she asked softly.

"I won't let it out of my sight."

"Jeremy--"

"I'm staying with Isaac," Jeremy said firmly.  For a geek -- and Jeremy was unquestionably a geek, so far outside the realm of coolness even Casey had nothing to worry about -- Jeremy could put out a surprising amount of stubborn.

Dana nodded, her lips pressed hard together.  "You stay with Isaac," she said.  Then she looked around the room.

"Don't just stand there, people," she snapped.  "We've got a show to do."

  
   


* * *

  
   


Casey was watching him.  Dan had been writing for fifteen minutes, keeping his feet carefully away from the cables under his desk.  He could feel Casey's eyes on him, and for the first time in a very long time, he didn't like the sensation.  He made more typos when Casey was watching him, he just knew it.

Dan looked up.  Casey's eyes were on his keyboard.  Casey never made typos because Casey always looked at the keys.  Dan felt sure there was something wrong with that; it wasn't fair to the rest of the world.  It was cheating.

"Cut it out," Dan said.  He knew he was opening a door, but hell, there were always open doors between the two of them.  They couldn't lock a door to save their lives.

"I'm typing," Casey said.  "If I stop typing, it interferes with the writing process."  He said it in an abstracted kind of way, but when he looked up, he was smiling.  "It's inevitable," he said.

"Natalie's going to be fine," Dan offered.

Casey nodded.  "I know."

"You do?"

"I do."

"Good," Dan said.  "I thought it was just me."

"You always think it's just you, Danny.  That's your problem.  You always think everything is just you."

"Sometimes it is just me."

Casey took his hands away from the keyboard and looked Dan in the eye.  It was a speaking look, saying something that Dan felt instinctively was both frightening and good.  "Sometimes it's not," Casey said.

"What are we talking about here?  We're sure as hell not talking about Natalie."

"We're not talking about Natalie because Natalie is fine," Casey said. "We're talking about me and you now."

Dan leaned back in his chair.  He felt tense for no real reason.  He'd had Casey in his home for years, camped out on his couch in a T-shirt and sweats every Sunday night for The X Files.  They'd played ball together, written for days together, but suddenly there didn't seem to be enough space between them.  A little more space would definitely be a good thing right now.

Or a little less, maybe.  Less might be good, too.  "You could've said," Danny replied after a moment.

"I just now said.  Are you being deliberately obtuse?"

Dan grinned.  "Are you implying there are times when I'm obtuse accidentally?"

Casey sighed.  "This conversation is over."

"It hasn't even started yet," Dan said.  And if it didn't start soon, he was going to require tranquilizers.  His nerves weren't built for this kind of abuse.  It wasn't that he was a nervous guy, generally; it was just that Casey kept looking at him in a way that made him want to run.  With no clear idea of which direction he'd choose.  It was an undirected kind of fight or flight thing, but since this was Casey, he couldn't really do either.  It was enough to make him feel more than a little bit resentful. He and Casey, they didn't fight.

They discussed.  "Just say what you're saying, Casey.  We've got writing to do."

"All right, Dan, where do you want me to start?"

"Start with whatever it is that isn't just me, that doesn't have to do with Natalie.  I think that's a good place to start, since that's where you stopped, don't you?"

"You.  Me.  Us.  It isn't just you."

"Say that in the language of my people, Casey."

Casey spoke slowly, like Dan's ears might be on at the wrong speed.  "I do want your attention," he said.  "Having your attention is important to me."

"Ha!  I was right!"

"Yes.  You were right."

Dan stood up, and went over to Casey's desk.  This wasn't an admission he heard very often; he didn't want to miss any of it.  It also put him a great deal closer to his partner, which he was thinking of now as kind of a good thing.  Confusing, but there wasn't a lot about Casey that made sense. He pushed aside a few pages of his own handwritten script, the one that sucked, and sat on the edge of Casey's desk. "Say that again," he said.

Casey smiled at him.  It was a masterwork of a smile, the kind only Casey's son and Dan got on a regular basis.  Dan probably should've noticed how elite that group was before now.  "You were right, Dan Rydell," Casey said in his best stage baritone.  "You want that on tape?"

Dan shook his head slowly.  "I'm thinking.  And what I'm thinking is, that was way too easy and there has to be a catch somewhere.  I'm  also noticing that you admit that I'm right, but haven't made any offers of reconciliation or promises to make amends.  What's up with that?"

"I don't intend to make amends.  I don't even intend to stop doing the thing that made you mad in the first place.  I want your attention.  I like having it."  Casey leaned forward, very close to Dan.  Astonishingly close. "Deal," he said.

Casey sounded different.  He looked different.  Or maybe he was just looking at Dan differently.  Maybe that was it.

"And here we are at the beginning again," Dan said lightly.

"I love you."

Or maybe he was looking at Dan the way he always had before -- only more so.  A lot more so.

Dan spoke carefully.  The ground he was on here wasn't ground he was used to.  "We've been best friends for ten years.  Am I supposed to be surprised?"

"You asked."

"This is not the Casey McCall I know."

"I'm more that Casey McCall than I've ever been.  Are you hearing what I'm saying, Dan?  I don't expect you to be surprised.  In fact, I'm going to be really surprised if you're surprised at all."

"You want my attention."

"I do."

"How much of my attention do you want, exactly?"

"All of it."

"All of it?"

"Total attentiveness," Casey said.  "I'm prepared to return the favor."

The rest of it might've been a long time coming, but that was a surprise and Casey damn well knew it.  Nobody got all of Casey McCall's attention except Casey McCall.  Everybody else was just timesharing a corner of Casey's brain.  It wasn't that Casey didn't care.  He was just focused. Extremely focused.  Okay, extremely inwardly focused, a lot of the time, but when Casey did give somebody else his attention, they got it in really high dosages.  Lethal dosages.

Like now.

"You are not," Dan said definitively.

But Casey didn't back down.  "I am," he said, so sincerely that Dan couldn't doubt.

"Since when?"

"Nine o'clock this morning, give or take a few minutes."

Dan stood up, and shoved his hands into blue-jean pockets that weren't made for it.  "I'm going back to my script now," he announced.

Casey reached out and clamped down on Dan's arm.  Dan would've walked away, but walking away from Casey was a talent he had never possessed. Instead, he stood still and quiet and watchful and didn't breathe.

"I have no idea since when, Dan," Casey said.  "Does it really matter since when?"

"Does Lisa know about this?"

"Yeah, I emailed her yesterday right after I called the press and all my ex-girlfriends."

"You're having a bad attitude day today, aren't you."

"Every day is a bad attitude day, Danny.  It's one of the perks of being less than cool."

"About that coolness thing," Dan said.

"Yeah?"

"I may have to rethink that."

Casey reached up, and touched Dan's face -- not really a sexy touch, more like he was wondering what Dan's face felt like.  His fingers were warm. If Dan had ever expected Casey to touch him like this, this is what he would've thought it would feel like.  It was familiar.  Weird, but good. "I think this is not just me," Casey said quietly.

Dan nodded, and reached out for Casey's other hand.  Casey took it immediately, and they both hung on tight.  "I think Lisa's going to be pissed," Dan said, starting to grin.

"You like that idea, don't you," Casey said.

Dan nodded.  "Like you wouldn't believe, my friend," he said. "Like you would not believe."

  
   


* * *

  
   


Dana had sixty seconds to air.  She'd had three cups of coffee in the past hour.  Her makeup was irreparably ruined and she hadn't seen the script. She was about three breaths away from hysteria at any given moment and the clock was ticking.

Natalie slid into the chair beside her, adjusted her headset, and spoke into the mike.

"You guys all set?" she said.  "Casey, you've got a typo in your second paragraph; the Niner's are 0 for 4 with Green Bay, not 0 for 5.  I think Steve Young would care, don't you?"

On the screen in front of Dana, Casey's head came up and his eyes came on. "Natalie," he said.  "Are you aware that the police are looking for you?"

"They found me," she said.  "In J.C. Penney's."

"You shop at J.C. Penney's?" Jeremy asked.

Natalie glared at him; Dana noted that it didn't dim his grin even a little bit.  "They were having a sale," Natalie growled.

"I told you she was fine," Dan said, looking up at the lights above him. He was grinning on the screen.  Dana still couldn't find her voice. "Nobody ever listens," he said.

Dana tried to say something again, and failed.  Succeeded sporadically, actually, but what came out was incomprehensible.  "I--.  Where?  You just--"

Jeremy's hands came down on her shoulders, and Dana took a deep breath. Natalie was her best friend and her right hand and the only person she could really confide in.  Dana wanted to be calm, but calm was just slightly out of her reach at the moment.

"She's okay," Jeremy said into Dana's ear.  "Take a look."

"Where?" Dana said again.  "I called -- everywhere!  We called your mother, your father--"

"She even called your hair stylist, Natalie," Casey said on the screen. "You might want to get in touch."

"It was my day off," Natalie said calmly.  "I put in for it months ago. You guys were really worried, huh?"

"Nah," Danny said.  Even over the speakers, Dana could hear the relief in his voice.  "Not at all.  We'll have to cancel the guy who was coming to rubberize the walls of Dana's office, though."

"I emailed you, Danny," Natalie said.

"My computer is possessed by demons," he answered defensively.  "Jeremy said so."

"No," Jeremy said, "you said so and I said that was one possible explanation."

"I emailed you about your computer problems and how I wasn't going to be here to fix them because it was my day off," Natalie said.

"I didn't get that," Dan said patiently.  "Demons."

"I was never worried," Dana said loudly.  Everyone shut up.  She thought she pulled off the act admirably.  She was a professional.  "Casey, I thought you were getting rid of that tie."

"Dan likes my tie," Casey said, as if that were the end of it.  He reached up and smoothed his hand over the tie, leaning over the desk till the  
gorilla on it loomed large in the screen.  "He says it's cool."

"You really like that tie?" she said to Danny.

"It's cool," Dan affirmed.

"Natalie?"  Her voice shook.  Just a little bit.  She was almost back on track, but she'd been scared.  Dana didn't like to be scared; it ranked very highly on her list of things not to be before a show.

"I think it's cool. too," Natalie said.  "What does it say?  'Love Money?'"

"Monkey," Casey replied smugly, settling back into his chair.  He looked really good tonight.  He looked happy.

"Why didn't you answer your pager?" Dana demanded, turning on Natalie suddenly.  "You never answered.  Do you know how many times I beeped you?"

"It was her day off, Dana," Isaac said.  "Face it; we dropped the ball on this one, while Natalie went shopping."

"I turned it off," Natalie said.  "I'm really sorry.  I thought you guys knew I was going to be out."

"I didn't know," Dana said.  "Jeremy didn't know.  Isaac didn't know--"

"We have ten seconds to air," Natalie said.  "Did you guys know someone robbed my apartment?  I have to go to the police station after the show."

"Burgled," Jeremy said.  "It's only robbery if you're there for it."

Dana made a strangled sound, and stripped off her head set.  She stood up, looming over Natalie.  From the corner of her eye, she could see Jeremy realizing what he'd said and slowly turning white.  "You always answer your pager," she said.  "Always!  Do you hear me?"

Natalie stood up, and put her arms around Dana.  "Dana, I'm okay."

"I know."

"I bought shoes."

"I can see that."

"I won't ever scare you guys again," Natalie said.  "I promise."

Dana nodded, too embarrassed and relieved to speak at all.  She hugged Natalie back instead, and battled down a sudden craving for a cigarette. She hadn't smoked in years, and she wasn't going to break now.

On the screen in front of them, Dan cleared his throat.  "If you guys are finished goofing off," he said, grinning, "My partner and I were thinking of doing a show."

Dana looked up.  Dan was looking over at Casey, and Casey was looking back, smiling.  Not grinning, but smiling; some people couldn't see the difference with Casey, but  Dana could.

She smiled at both of them.  Dan looked really happy, too.


End file.
